Night One of Arcade Fire at the Ukrainian Federation - Pictures

Being one of the many poor lost souls unable to get some back when they originally went out on sale, tickets for the five night Ukrainian Federation concerts were an unattainable treasure. Our prayers, however, were answered when an article in the Gazette revealed that tickets would go on sale on each days on the concert at L’Oblique, a record store behind Mont Royal metro. The original plan being to camp out, but we chose against the idea when temperatures dropped so dramatically during the night of Monday to Tuesday and made our way to the line-up of about 20 people at 5AM. By 7, the maximum of 50 was already reached and the store owner decided to open at 10 rather than 12, much to our relief! There was a limit of one ticket per client and we were given a blue bracelet and asked to keep our bill preciously, without which we would be denied entry.

It took nothing but a wave from Win Butler for the previously sitting crowd to rise and run straight up to the stage. The Ukrainian was packed and excited and the band didn’t deceive us! They started off with three songs off their new album Neon Bible (due out in March), one of which was Black Mirror, which can be heard when you call the Neon Bible hotline, and a re-worked version of No Cars Go. The crowd went wild for Haiti and generally kept a high level of excitement throughout, demanding two encores, with an acoustic version of Wake Up, out in the crowd. The band had a total of 10 members including Bell Orchestre Pietro Amato, and another female violinist. The band’s energy was contagious and they were visibly happy to be playing again. And boy, were we happy that they were!